There’s no place like home for the holidays. Whether you are a new homeowner, or are celebrating another holiday season in your well-loved home, your living spaces can be integral in making memories with family and friends. Time to put some holiday music on, gather up the kids and start creating these holiday traditions now, one room at a time.

Kitchen
With so much delicious food to make and bake during the holiday season, your kitchen is an easy place to begin creating holiday traditions. Baking cookies, frying latkes or building gingerbread houses (complete with a RE/MAX sign!) are activities in which the whole family can participate. You can go one step further and take your cooking skills to a local soup kitchen to support your community during this season of giving.

Living Room
Often the center of the home, your living room-is where the hustle and bustle of the holidays melts away. Kick back with a holiday movie, start a fire and decorate the Christmas tree as a family in matching holiday sweaters, no less! Light the menorah or host a New Year’s Eve party. The holidays can be stressful-use your home as a sanctuary to focus and reflect on what this time of year means to you.

Outdoors
When you think of holiday traditions outside, colorful lights and an inflatable Santa come to mind. But don’t dismiss other low-stress outdoor activities like sparklers in the snow, sky lanterns or caroling. If you can handle the cold, or live in a temperate climate, plan a get-together around an outdoor fire (complete with a yule log) on the Winter Solstice.

At RE/MAX, our agents find homes that match your life and style. Are you ready to start making traditions in a home of your own?

But shop around because a growing number of retailers are offering sales on LED holiday lights and, if you can’t find a sale before the holidays, you can certainly find one after. Plus, prices will surely go down as these lights gain traction.

3. LED holiday lights last and last.LED bulbs can keep your season bright for as long as 100,000 hours, says Cathy Choi, president of Moonachie, N.J.-based Bulbrite, which manufactures LED and regular bulbs. That’s substantially longer than the life of your old holiday light strings.

4. You can string a BIG strand of LED lights.Safety wise, you shouldn’t connect more than three traditional light strings, but you can connect up to 87 LED holiday light strings, totaling a whopping 1,500 feet, Choi says. So blow your neighbor’s display away by cocooning your house in lights:

You won’t have to buy as many extension cords.

You can take your holiday lighting display further away from the outlet.

5. LED lights reduce the risk of fire.They stay cooler thanincandescent bulbs, according to Energy Star.

6. How about that hue?Some people stick with their old lights because they don’t like the brighter hue that white LED holiday lights emit. But Choi says manufacturers now offer a “warm white” bulb that more closely mimics the glow of an incandescent light. Be sure to read the label to choose a bright or warm white and to ensure what you’re purchasing isEnergy Star-certified.

Colored and color-changing LED holiday lights are more vibrant than conventional lights, making your display easier to see from the street, Choi says.

2. Plan side dishes that can cook simultaneously with the turkey. If you cook dishes at the same temperature at the same time, you’ll reduce the amount of time theovenhas to be running — it’s easier for the cook andsaves energy, too.

When you start cooking

3. Lower your house thermostat a few degrees. The oven will keep the house warm. You also can turn on yourceiling fan so it sucks air up, distributing heat throughout the room.

4. Useceramic or glass pans— you can turn down the oven’s temp by up to 25 degrees and get the same results. That’s because these materials retain heat so well, they’ll continue cooking food even after being removed from the oven.

5. Use your oven’s convection feature. When heated air is circulated around the food, it reduces the required temperature and cooking time. You’llcut your energy use by about 20%.

6. Cook in the microwave whenever possible. Ditto slow cookers. Microwaves get the job done quickly, and although slow cookers take much longer, they still use less energy than the oven. Resist the urge to peek inside your slow cooker: Each time you remove the lid, it releases heat and can add about 25 minutes of cooking time to your dish.

7. Use lids on pots to retain heat. The food you’re cooking on the stovetop will heat up faster when you use lids.

When it’s cleanup time

8. Scrape plates instead of rinsing with hot water. Unless food is really caked on there, your dishwasher should get the dishes clean without a pre-rinse.Compostyour non-meat food waste.Check out these other Thanksgiving clean-up tips.

9. Use yourdishwasher. It saves energy and water, so only hand-wash things that aren’t dishwasher-safe. Wait until you’ve got a full load before starting the dishwasher. Be sure to stop the appliance before the heated dry cycle; just open the door and let your dishes air-dry.

]]>https://www.bestlahomefinder.com/blog/9-ways-to-avoid-gobbling-up-energy-on-thanksgiving/feed/0A New Site, New Tools, But the Same Youhttps://www.bestlahomefinder.com/blog/a-ne/
https://www.bestlahomefinder.com/blog/a-ne/#commentsThu, 02 May 2013 15:34:50 +0000http://beta.bestlahomefinder.com/?p=1RE/MAX Masters is proud to announce the release of our newly designed website. When we decided to update our main site, BestLAHomeFinder.com, we realized the design and search tools deserved a new upgrade. So that’s what we did! With our new site, we’re introducing a more streamlined search process, easier navigation, and tons of more information. But we’re aware all these changes might be a little confusing to our returning visitors, so we’ve created a simple “How To” document to show you what changes we’ve made and how you can still access all the things you loved from the old site. Here are some highlights:

For Returning Users

Don’t Panic! All your account information has been transferred over, so you can still access your favorite listings and saved searches from before. To log in to your account, click the “Sign In” tab, conveniently located in the upper right-hand corner of the webpage. A prompt will then ask you to fill in your login information (See Figure 1 below).

While logged in, you can review your saved searches, edit the results, and reorganize your listing e-Alerts. Search tags can be added or removed to your liking, which will narrow your results to more keyword specific terms. For example: neighborhoods, cities, and types of homes. When you’re finished, make sure to save the search again if you made any changes.

New Features

Enhanced Search Power

One of the newest features we’re revealing with our new site is the Suggestive Search Bar. Whenever you type in a search query, the search toolbar will “suggest” a list of possible terms you’re looking for. It’s extremely helpful in case you’ve forgotten how to spell a keyword or simply want to find related terms. Search results are also further divided into subcategories, which include: areas, neighborhoods, keywords, and schools (See Figure 2 below). This way, you can identify what you’re looking for in more detail and not be directed to results that don’t pertain to your search.

Upgraded Visual Experience

To further enhance our user’s search ability, we’ve completely upgraded the visual experience. Essentially, we decided to put more of an emphasis on the property rather than the number of listings. When you search for a home or area, you’ll notice the dramatic high-quality photos of our listings in the center of the webpage. With this, we wanted to provide you with as much information as possible before looking at another home listing. In return, it saves you time from browsing around and you can collect more in-depth details about our properties (See Figure 3 below).

By clicking on the side arrows of the photos, you’ll easily be able to thumb through additional pictures of our listings. Bedrooms and living areas will be captured in high detail, so you won’t be confused as to what the property offers. Additionally, we’ve added 2 more tabs to our visual tools labeled “Quick Map” and “Local Pics.” In Quick Maps, you can see where the property is located in relation to the area and even get driving directions. The Local Pics tab was designed to show you around the neighborhood. It’s one thing to see what the house looks like, but it’s equally important to know what the surrounding neighborhood looks like as well, so we presented you with additional photos to help you make a more informed decision.

Our Blog

In today’s real estate market, we’ve realized that our users are looking for more than just houses. They’re also looking for detailed information about buying their first home or what activities are available in the area. Maybe they’re looking for different ways to decorate their homes for the winter. Everyone is in need of different information, and to handle this problem, we’re introducing our own blog.

Our blog can be accessed at the bottom of our homepage by clicking “Our Blog” in the footer. Here, you’ll find new articles about local real estate and learn detailed information only locals can provide. Go ahead and start browsing! Who knows what unexpected things you’ll learn.

For Further Information

Still want to learn more about our new website? Click on the link below to read our free article about using our new tools and how to create a home search specifically designed for you.